(Philadelphia, PA) – Researchers from the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine received $1.1 million dollars
from the Cardiovascular Medical Research and Education Fund (CMREF) to
establish the Penn Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (IPAH) Center
for Cell Studies. The five-year grant is part of a national network that
will study the molecular and cellular origins of idiopathic pulmonary
arterial hypertension.

IPAH is a rare lung disorder in which the blood pressure in the pulmonary
artery rises far above normal levels. In response to these pressure rises,
the wall of the pulmonary artery thickens, causing the heart to work harder
and eventually fail. What triggers this thickening is not known in a lot
of cases. Although there is no known cure for the disease, treatments
are available. Many patients with pulmonary hypertension, however, continue
to worsen and some eventually require a heart-lung transplant.

The CMREF research initiative is designed to support a network of multidisciplinary,
collaborative transplant and research centers to study the origins of
IPAH. A coordinating center will be responsible for the design, maintenance
and analysis of the IPAH database.

“This field has traditionally been individual institutions performing
their own research, with little direct communication between groups,”
said Peter Jones, PhD, director of the Penn/CMREF Center.
“The idea of networking and pooling our resources is going to get
us to better treatments and hopefully a cure for this disease much faster
than working individually.”

Penn’s IPAH Center will have specific tasks to perform, including,
acquiring control and IPAH tissues, cells and fluids from patients, and
using these samples to identify new markers using state-of-the art cellular
and molecular biology approaches ranging from proteomics to imaging.

“What this center is really focused on is idiopathic hypertension,
hypertension with no known cause,” added Jones. “We want to
discover new molecular and genetic markers for this disease, then feed
our results to other institutes within the network that are doing additional
types of research on idiopathic hypertension. On an annual basis we will
meet to share and discuss our findings then continue to move forward.”

Darren Taichman, MD, PhD, Associate Director of the
Pulmonary and Vascular Disease Program at Penn Presbyterian Medical
Center, part of the University of Pennsylvania Health
System, is working with Jones and is leading the effort to collect
information and samples to be used in the study. “We have been consenting
patients to collect samples of their blood, then we will get some follow
up information like medicines they are taking and if there is any family
history of hypertension,” explained Taichman. “This will help
characterize the samples we pass to Dr. Jones. Once this is done the patients’
role is complete, but the information they provide allows us to analyze
the laboratory findings in the context of how well a patient does with
treatment”

Over the last several years numerous hypertension drugs have entered
the market. From a clinical standpoint, finding which drug is best for
a given patient is one of the study’s primary goals. “The
problem right now is we don’t know if one drug is better than the
other for a chosen individual,” concluded Taichman. “ Since
we are talking about a disease that can progress at a rapid pace you would
love to know ahead of time that a certain drug will be most beneficial
to a certain patient, versus any of the other different drugs.”

Jones adds, “It would be great if we could use the information
we find to develop new diagnostic markers or targeted therapies for IPAH
treatments and discover the repercussions for other diseases, including
certain forms of cancer and atherosclerosis, that share certain characteristics
of IPAH. Time will tell.”

Jones and Taichman’s research will be based at Penn’s multi-disciplinary
Institute for Medicine and Engineering, the Hospital of the University
of Pennsylvania’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine,
and the Pulmonary, and the Allergy and Critical Care Section of Presbyterian
Medical Center (PMC).

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PENN Medicine is a $2.7 billion enterprise dedicated
to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and
high-quality patient care. PENN Medicine consists of the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine (founded in 1765 as the nation's first
medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Penn’s School of Medicine is ranked #2 in the nation for receipt
of NIH research funds; and ranked #4 in the nation in U.S. News &
World Report’s most recent ranking of top research-oriented medical
schools. Supporting 1,400 fulltime faculty and 700 students, the School
of Medicine is recognized worldwide for its superior education and training
of the next generation of physician-scientists and leaders of academic
medicine.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System comprises: its flagship hospital,
the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, consistently rated one
of the nation’s “Honor Roll” hospitals by U.S. News
& World Report; Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital;
Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; a faculty practice plan; a primary-care
provider network; two multispecialty satellite facilities; and home health
care and hospice.